Hadi Rajabi
1 
, Mahdi Ahmadi
2, Somayeh Aslani
3, Shirin Saberianpour
4, Reza Rahbarghazi
5,6* 1 Koc University Research Center for Translational Medicine (KUTTAM), Koc University School of Medicine, Istanbul, Turkey.
2 Tuberculosis and Lung Diseases Research Center, Tabriz University of Medical Sciences, Tabriz, Iran.
3 Department of Biochemistry and Clinical Laboratories, Faculty of Medicine, Tabriz University of Medical Sciences, Tabriz, Iran.
4 Vascular and Endovascular Surgery Research Center, Mashhad University of Medical Sciences, Mashhad, Iran.
5 Stem Cell Research Center, Tabriz University of Medical Sciences, Tabriz, Iran
6 Department of Applied Cell Sciences, Faculty of Advanced Medical Sciences, Tabriz University of Medical Sciences, Tabriz, Iran
Abstract
Type 2 diabetes mellitus (T2DM) is a chronic metabolic abnormality leading to microvascular and macrovascular complications. Non-insulin Incretin mimic synthetic peptide exendin-4 was introduced as an anti-diabetic drug which helped diabetic patients with triggering insulin secretion; further researches have revealed an effective role of exendin-4 in treatment of T2DM related diseases. Exendin-4 is approximately similar to Glucagon-like peptide, thus it can bind to the glucagon-like peptide-1 receptor (GLP-1R) and activated different signaling pathways that are involved in various bioactivities such as apoptosis, insulin secretion and inactivation of microglial. In this review, we investigated the interesting role of exendin-4 in various kinds of T2DM related disorders through the activation of different signaling pathways.